When The B Is Called, It's Boxing, Not Bingo

LEDYARD — ESPN and Top Rank took the bingo out of the Foxwoods High Stakes Bingo & Casino Thursday night and inserted boxing. The leather-pushers put their own special Bingo back into it.

It works in Atlantic City, N.J., and in Nevada, and it worked this pleasant evening on the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation.

Another show, another element added to the unique ambience of another gambling palace.

The crowd that assembled where the bingo tables had stood was a fight crowd -- guys with beer bellies and cigars, mingling with elegant women escorted by men in evening attire. Fighters, who always come to see other fighters, were spotted around in the 2,200 chairs that surrounded the red, white and blue ring, with its Budweiser signs in the corners and ESPN banners draped strategically to catch the eye of the camera. Fight fans from all over.

The bingo would resume as soon as the vast hall could be reconstructed in this clean new place of chance, which hasn't closed for so much as one minute from the time it opened its doors Feb. 15 at 10 a.m.

"Our bingo players received plenty of notification," said David R. Kripitz, director of marketing at Foxwoods. The casino has a mailing list. "Every two months we mail out a sheet to them so they know the nights the bingo will be shut down, such as tonight, or when Kenny Rogers or David Brenner were doing shows here."

Tickets for this televised show were snapped up in no time. If, as Nevadan Kripitz says, it is ascertained that boxing flies as high as the hawks in the Ledyard woods, more boxing will be scheduled here, perhaps as many as six shows a year.

"We'll evaluate this evening very carefully," Kripitz said.

While the boxing crowd drank its full behind the closed doors of the bingo section, life went on at its normal pace at the casino blackjack and poker tables, roulette and money wheels. Which is to say, briskly. The bar and restaurant trade was steady. The piano player-vocalist plied his tunes. Tulips, spotted about, gave off a cheerful aspect, a little bit of spring indoors. And people, chips burning holes in their pockets, waited patiently for a table.

Around the ring, people walked and talked and strutted, many wanting just to show that they were here.

Boxing people talked themselves up, as is their bent.

Sean Malone Sr. and his son, junior welterweight Sean Malone Jr., 24, spoke of the gym they had built, for training at home in Wallingford. Malone was supposed to have a spot on this card, highlighted by heavyweights Tommy "Duke" Morrison and Kimmuel Odum, but he has torn ligaments in his thumb. Sean Jr. is a former New England and Junior Olympics Golden Gloves champ.

The elder Malone said he promotes boxing shows at the Holiday Inn in North Haven. He said capacity is 750, and every show is a sellout.

"This show is good for the area," Sean Sr. said. "You don't have to go to Las Vegas or Atlantic City."

It may indeed be good for boxing in the area. It's a target at which the young lionhearts, such as Sean Jr., can aim.

Hartford's Johnny Duke was here to work the corner, if needed, for Morrison. "I'm the fourth man in his corner, in case the kid gets cut," Duke said, before relating that two of his Bellevue Square fighters, Greg McGhee and Earl Anderson, will be in Chicago May 3-10, fighting in national championships.

Flyweight Luigi "Hard Rock" Camputaro of Southington, who will fight the main event in a May 29 show at the Southington Armory, was at ringside with wife Tina. Luigi wore a dark suit with the narrowest, almost invisible, pink pinstripes and pegged pants. His pink shirt was opened at the throat. A gold chain and pendant bumped against his chest and his long hair was slicked back just so. Ha. Luigi Camputaro was here.

Fans had fun, and there are still boxing fans around, plenty of them. Bob Pace of Revere, Mass. had a front-row seat. "I am not a boxing fan, I am the boxing fan," he said. "I've gone everywhere to watch fights." He is known for his vast collection of boxing memorabilia, including a robe that belonged to Rocky Marciano, and a pair of gloves used by Marvelous Marvin Hagler.

Like most people in this bingo hall, he was here to satisfy his passion for the sweet science. "I don't gamble," he said. "I like my money."

Cliff Paquette of Danielson, who traveled to Atlantic City not long ago to see Vinnie Pazienza fight, has a broken leg, suffered on a construction job. That didn't stop him and three friends from attending, even though they had seats in the back row of the general admission section.

He wore a hat that said "Flamingo Hilton Poker," given to him, he said by a pit boss in Atlantic City.

"But I come to bingo too," he said. "Because my wife Marie likes bingo. So I'll be back soon."

This TV-staged fight night worked well. ESPN doesn't produce sports entertainment to lose money. Nor do casinos. Which goes to show: Put up a casino in the right spot, and bingo, you've got boxing